Ashtons Legal joins the regional legal heavyweights

Posted 20/09/2012

Just one year on from the firm’s merger, Ashtons Legal has joined the East Anglian ‘regional heavyweights’, according to the Legal 500 UK directory which was published yesterday.  

Ashtons Legal has given the league table of heavyweight practices a ‘shake-up’, in the annual independent review of UK Law firms, where we join six other East Anglian law firms given ‘heavyweight’ status. ‘Business Weekly’ states that: “Ashtons Legal has become the second fastest riser in successive years to bust apart a long-established elite”.

We have achieved first tier rankings in seven of our services this year, including Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate, Commercial Litigation, Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury. Notable successes also include our Corporate & Commercial team in Norwich, the Commercial Property team in Cambridge, the Commercial Litigation team in Ipswich and our Property Litigation team – each of which have gone up the rankings table this year compared to 2011.

Referring to the merger of Ashtons Legal and Ashtons Legal in October 2011, the Legal 500 states that it was “by far the biggest consolidation in the region”, which “achieves a considerable spread of resources across the region, and brings together many complementary practices”.

There is cause for more celebration as we also now have more ‘leading individuals’ than many of our competitors. Newly ranked are: Edward O’Rourke (Corporate & Commercial), Hannah Rutterford (Personal Injury), and Michael Frape (Dispute Resolution), who feature alongside Ruth Booy (Personal Injury), Robert Gair (Personal Injury) and Bob McGeady (Planning), who have retained their leading individual status from last year.

Both our teams and individual lawyers received wide ranging praise from the Legal 500. Some of the highlights include:

–    “an excellent communicator with great patience and understanding”. He has “a good grasp of commercial reality and a good sense of humour” (Geoff Hazlewood)
–    “a credit to her profession: intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate”. (Sandra Patton)  
–    “meticulous, helpful, hands-on and willing to put in extra effort” (Ron Clare)
–    “wonderful, efficient and friendly” (Alan Brown)
–    “proactive, extremely intelligent, and compassionate” (Hannah Rutterford)
–    “personable yet professional, and willing to take the commercial view” (Edward O’Rourke and Damian Humphrey)
–    noted for “successfully navigating difficult and sensitive client relationships” (Polly Stephenson)
–    “incisive, prompt and clear advice” (Michael Frape)
–    “pleasant, efficient and positive” (Personal tax, trusts and probate team)
–    “experienced, friendly lawyers who understand the importance of detail” (Agriculture & Estates team)
–    “sensitive, professional and worth every penny” (Family team)

For further information, please see: www.legal500.com